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Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

grocerycouponguide.com

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Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#21

Post by mkramlich »

If your job pays you say $50/hour to work, but you have to spend one additional hour each month implementing this system (figuring out what to buy, where, when, managing coupons, gaming the system, etc.) that right there costs you $50 in opportunity time, cancelling out some of the supposed savings. The problem gets worse if it takes you multiple hours per month, or your wage is even higher.

In short, I think the whole extreme min-maxing effort makes the most sense if you have a very low income job and the most important thing to minimize is your dollar outgo rate. Most professional programmers should not have to do this.

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#22

Post by JacobAldridge »

mkramlich wrote: post #21

If your job pays you say $50/hour to work, but you have to spend one additional hour each month implementing this system (figuring out what to buy, where, when, managing coupons, gaming the system, etc.) that right there costs you $50 in opportunity time, cancelling out some of the supposed savings. The problem gets worse if it takes you multiple hours per month, or your wage is even higher. In short, I think the who…

Well, that assumes you are willing to work in that hour and had the work available, but chose not to do it because your were implementing the system.

If you do this instead of watching mindless TV, factoring in the opportunity cost is inaccurate.

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#23

Post by jarek »

scotty79 wrote: post #20
jarek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and neither is buying $16 worth of non-food items so that you can get $4 worth of food items for 'free'.

Are you sure that he was doing that? I didn't read through whole thing day by day but on day 1 he uses his food money to purchase non food items because they give him coupons worth more than what he had to pay for them in cash: http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/eating-well-on-1-...

Oops, sorry, I was misreading http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/eating-well-on-1-...

One wonders if he should have included gas burnt driving to all the places which had stuff on sale, and I definitely support all of the opportunity cost comments.

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#24

Post by noodle »

inmygarage wrote: post #16

what these sorts of schemes ignore is how much time it takes to clip, sort and strategize. how much is an hour of your time worth? if it's more than what you'd save by doing the extra work then to me the savings aren't really worth it (shortened version: opportunity cost matters).

false dichotomy. it is not necessarily going to the be the case that you'll be busy making money if you weren't busy clipping coupons.

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#27

Post by mkramlich »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #22
mkramlich wrote: post #21

If your job pays you say $50/hour to work, but you have to spend one additional hour each month implementing this system (figuring out what to buy, where, when, managing coupons, gaming the system, etc.) that right there costs you $50 in opportunity time, cancelling out some of the supposed savings. The problem gets worse if it takes you multiple hours per month, or your wage is even higher. In short, I think the who…

Well, that assumes you are willing to work in that hour and had the work available, but chose not to do it because your were implementing the system. If you do this instead of watching mindless TV, factoring in the opportunity cost is inaccurate.

Good point!

But for folks who already don't watch mindless TV, or who have other opportunity projects or investments that monetize better, the argument still holds. For example, instead of putting an extra hour into one's day job, you could put an hour into making some new product or service which will in turn make you back more money than you would have saved if you did his extreme food cost reduction scheme. Or learn a new skill.

But who are we kidding? The extra hour will surely be spent reading HN. :)

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#28

Post by ojbyrne »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #11

This is the most frustrating post because the majority of the text is telling you something is possible without telling you how to do it. It reads like a timeshare brochure or coupon book sales pitch. It's easy enough to live off $2 a meal though. Breakfast: Oatmeal with Bananas/Raisins/Cinnamon (no sugar though - it will make you hungry sooner) and tea or coffee from whole beans bought at IKEA. Eggs. Lunch: Beans an…

Click on "Home" for more detail. This is the "things I've learned" part of the blog, there's more detail.

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#29

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

noodle wrote: post #24
inmygarage wrote: post #16

what these sorts of schemes ignore is how much time it takes to clip, sort and strategize. how much is an hour of your time worth? if it's more than what you'd save by doing the extra work then to me the savings aren't really worth it (shortened version: opportunity cost matters).

false dichotomy. it is not necessarily going to the be the case that you'll be busy making money if you weren't busy clipping coupons.

You don't have to be making money for your time to be worth something. I'm home from work right now. If an hour spent clipping coupons takes away from "recreational" time spent coding for fun or in my machine shop puttering around, it's not worth it. The leisure time is worth more to me than the money the coupons would save.

Re: Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

#30

Post by dkokelley »

http://www.thegrocerygame.com/ has a system designed to help you sort through the coupon 'game'. Apparently, grocery goods typically go through a 12 week cycle of being the most discounted to not being discounted at all (this involves tracking manufacturer coupons AND grocery store coupons and timing the overlaps).

My mom did this for a family of 8 which cut grocery expenses in half. I'm not sure if it will scale down to 1-3 people effectively though.

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